Philly Big Bag

The monthly purse series I am enrolled in came up with a great reversible tote this month. The city was Philadelphia and the folk at Stitchin' Heaven came up with an oversized reversible tote using fabrics based on items in the National Museum of the American Coverlet and reproduced by Windham Fabrics. The fabrics were canvas weight and at first I thought the fabrics were like cut velvet or a carpet. The bag turned out to be about 22" square. I shortened and widened the handles because, for some reason, I did not end up with the right width after I straightened the fabric. Shorter, fatter handles means it does not fit on my shoulder... which is probably a good thing considering my bad shoulders. Anyway, here are a couple of shots of the bag.

One thing I did that was different than the pattern was that I added a little pocket for my cell phone. To maintain the integrity of the reversibility of the tote I hung the pocket on some ribbon so I could flip it from one side to the other.. depending on which side is considered the inside. I guess I could have added more pockets but the one thing I hate fishing for in my bag is a ringing cell phone. So I can't find my wallet buried under a lot of parcels, I can at least find my cell phone.

I did change the construction from a typical reversible tote bag. Normally you would construct the outer bag seperately from the inner bag; slip the inner bag into the outer bag and then sew them together at the top... inserting handles if necessary.

In this case I put the outer fabric right sides together, the inner fabric right sides together, stacked them on each other and sewed the bottoms together. I then opened out the bag, sewed up the sides, boxed the bottom corners, opened out the outer fabric and continued like it was constructed in the normal order.

Sounds complex but it really isn't. I'll try to put some pictures together.

Until then I will enjoy my new tote as my knitting group bag. I tend to carry books and yarn and needles to knit with friends so something bigger that my middle school knitting bag is really needed.